After more than 3 years of development, the final version of Skycurser is finally available as pre-order! The action of this American horizontal shoot'em up takes place in 1996. The player is Guy Griffin, the last man on Earth not being infected by a plague originating from a star named Necrostar. His grandfather had a vision of things to come and built a special warplane: the Skycurser. It's time to use it to destroy the source of the plague. The plane is equipped with a machine gun, a shotgun and a Katana blade. The second player controls a mecha piloted by Guy's dog. The influence of Doom, Metal Slug and Splatterhouse is undeniable, it's brutal and bloody! The current version of the game includes 4 levels but 2 new levels and new content will be sent for free to buyers in the coming months. Skycurser is available in three different formats: the $700 pro kit including the Airframe system, the game, instructions and a poster, the $1200 deluxe kit including the rest of the decoration to turn any cabinet into Skycurser and finally the full machine featuring a 25" CRT monitor for $3500. The game is scheduled for release on June 6th (the date on which the first orders will be sent out). You will find pictures of all of this on our forum. A few words about the Airframe platform; developed by Griffin Aerotech in parallel with Skycurser, it is a JAMMA-format system running on Linux and accepting updates via Wi-Fi. Skycurser is the first game to be released on this system but other titles are in development including Founding Force (a beat'em all featuring the Founding Fathers of the USA) and Beach Dogs (a frisbee game like Windjammers with dogs).

Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 is available on Sega's ALL.Net P-ras MULTI Version 2 today. As previously announced, Arc System Works adds two new characters: Baiken and Answer. Baiken is a samourai whose fighting style is based on guard cancellation and Answer is a ninja-like character using shuriken. This version features many new elements such as a balance adjustment and new techniques for all existing characters, a free tutorial and a new Player's Guild. The tutorial that was already present in the home version is a very interesting feature for beginners who want to try the game for free! The Player's Guild web application is renewed with new functions such as browsing and editing profile data including battles and ranking, purchase additional content with in-game currency, join private groups,...

The walkers of The Walking Dead TV series have entered the city of Ostend today as demonstrated by this video. The only way to fight them is to go to Reflex arcade to stick arrows to their head! Yes, the originality of this cabin shooting game is the weapon used: a crossbow-shaped controller. Of course the atmosphere is oppressive, the graphics beautiful and zombie's blood spits everywhere! The staging of the game is very cinematic like previous shooting games by developer Play Mechanix like Terminator Salvation and Aliens Armageddon. The Walking Dead video game has just come out and it's a first in Belgium! So don't miss this opportunity to play it first and share your impressions in the dedicated topic on our forums. Reflex is open today from noon and will be accessible on Saturday and Sunday from 11:00.

SNK has announced a new The King of Fighters anime series. The King of Fighters: Destiny is a CG animated series featuring 20 episodes that will be out this Summer. This a Chinese production, the staff is mainly Chinese but there are also Japanese artists that will work on it: the team in charge of the special effects of Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV. We don't know if The King of Fighters: Destiny will be broadcast outside of China but according to the official website, all characters have both Chinese and Japanese seiyu. Characters announced are: Kyo Kusanagi, Benimaru Nikaido, Doro Daimon, Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, Joe Higashi, Ryo Sakazaki, Robert Garcia and Yuri Sakazaki. SNK has already released a trailer.

A new version of Code of Joker from Sega will be releaded in the middle of April and will be named Code of Joker EDGE. Two new characters will be added: Chloe Nochez (CV: Rina Sato) and Takeshi Akahane (CV: Yusuke Kobayashi) and 60 new cards will be released. New features will be available. Two campaigns are running in Code of Joker S to celebrate the release of the new version: "Countdown campaign" and "Soundtrack gift campaign".

Quiz Magic Academy The World Evolve was presented at JAEPO 2017 in February. The game will be available in Japanese game centers tomorrow. This new version of the famous quiz game from Konami introduces a new female character named Vany. You can watch the trailer here.

Initial D Arcade Stage Zero hits Japanese game centers today! Sega released a new cabinet with new features. It's the first time that an Initial D game uses a new cabinet since Initial D Arcade Stage 4. It's equipped with a 6-speed speed shifter (instead of the sequential one), there are speakers in the seat and the steering wheel is smaller than before. Unlike previous Initial D games, the save card is now AIME and not a proprietary one anymore. Initial D 8 cards are not compatible but players can convert their Initial D 8 mileage into points to be used in Initial D Zero via their SEGA ID. Until now, the chara design was based on the manga from ShÅ«ichi Shigeno but in this new version, the chara design comes from the 2014 anime Shin GekijÅ-ban Initial D Legend 1 -Kakusei-. The other big change is the music; most of the traditional Eurobeat soundtrack is replaced by songs from the movie (CLUTCHO, Backdraft Smiths,...). Initial D Arcade Stage Zero introduces an interesting new feature for the fans: team management. Players can create a team with friends and the team name will be displayed in local and online rankings. Each team can hold up to 6 members and the team name can't be changed. A player can not move to another team within 10 days of joining or creating a team. When a member moves to another team, his time attack records and points are reset, causing the team score to decrease and TA times to disappear. Another new feature is that, in competition mode, player can ask for a revenge race. You can watch the opening here.

For its tenth release, Data Disc offers soundtracks of two arcade classics from the late '80s: Galaxy Force II and Thunder Blade. Using the sprite-scaling technique to simulate a three-dimensional universe, these two Sega simulators impressed a lot of players as they were ahead of their time. Their soundtracks are a mixture of funk and fusion, genres often associated with the space theme in those days (as in Space Adventure Cobra). Soundtracks of both games are composed by Koichi Namiki, Katsuhiro Hayashi and Tohru Nakabayashi and simulates real instruments using a Yamaha YM2151 chip and a proprietary PCM chip. On the A side, the Galaxy Force II soundtrack includes a live arrangement of "Beyond the Galaxy" played by Hiroshi "Hiro" Kawaguchi (composer of OutRun and Space Harrier) and his band (including a keyboard solo by Hiro himself). On the other side, Thunder Blade's O.S.T. features 3 unused tracks. The music was captured from the original arcade boards (System X and System Y) and remastered for vinyl support. The record is available in 3 editions: a limited edition in frosted clear and translucent yellow vinyl with white splashes, a translucent yellow edition and a standard black edition. Each edition costs £20 and can be ordered on this page: http://data-discs.com/products/galaxyforce-thunderblade from today at 20:00 CET. The vinyls will be sent to the buyers before the end of the month. You can listen to a song from each game on Soundcloud.